Tuesday, June 7, 2011

I used to hope it would be that way for us. But it is not going to be that easy.

"I'm glad mom can't have a baby"

Tonight, that comment left me with a bit of whiplash. Made me very angry despondent to here our long time foster daughter utter such an insensitive remark.

I had some responses to see if she understood what a comment like that, how a comment like that, could deeply hurt someone inside. Words stick I told her, and once they are said, it is hard to take them back. All week I've been saying treat others as you would want to be treated. This was not one of these moments. I'm very sensitive about the subject of my infertility, and when someone this naive about the subject says something rather cruel in passing, it really makes my blood boil.

1) How would you feel inside, if I told you, I wished you were never born? Would that be a hurtful thing to say to you?

2) When your foster father comes home, tell him that you are happy that his wife is defective and cannot have babies - see what he says. If you think it is okay to tell me that, then it should be okay to tell him.

3) Do you really think, with my background, with my family struggles, that even if I could have my own children, I wouldn't do foster care and take other young people into our lives? Clearly I'm not in this for the loving words and gestures shown to my family. I'm more in it for the rehabilitation of broken little souls. Remarks like this are hurtful ➜ upsetting ➜ extremely ➜ unpleasant. Learn some manners and put a filter on your mouth!!

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I'm reminded of a time when I said to my mother, about a guy she had been dating for many years whom I liked, that I thought she only wanted to marry him for his money. She left the room and didn't speak to me for an entire weekend. I was forbidden to go to the homecoming fair with my friends. I was left to cry in my room for the next 50 hours, with nobody to talk to. My mother went to bed and didn't get up for several days after my remark. What I said hurt, but she had no fight in her to defend my comment. Clearly I struck a nerve with her also.

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If I'm wrong to bombard my foster child with questions directed towards empathy and compassion for others, how will she ever learn the concept? If I can turn an off putting remark into something that will enlighten her feelings, maybe she might open her eyes on occasion and think about how she makes others feel with her words. I never want to end up in a situation they way my mother treated me - she couldn't even tell me what I said was wrong, or why it upset her.

Putting someone's needs or feelings before your own seems hard to grasp in this house with the older children who stay with us. The 3 year old twins I babysit, thoughtfully do it each day for one another though. I'm hopeful that the young ones can inspire the older children to be better people. Each day is a challenge and I thought it might be easier, but it is not going to be that easy.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” C. S. Lewis

4 comments:

think you are right to be upset. But remember what you described as her naivete'. She's just a kid. You were just a kid when you made the insensitive comment to your own mom. And people as adults still say insensitive things that they should have just shut up about but said anyway because most adults, including me, are idiots.

I dunno, dear. What I'm saying is to try to not compound the felony by being hurtful and insensitive back.My own mom and dad would pull all stops and convince me I was so horrible a person that I didn't deserve to live. Anything I did wrong anywhere was a direct attack on them. It still affects me to this day.

Holding back the need to lash out is nearly impossible to do sometimes. We are all shits to each other and ourselves and it sucks. The best we can hope for is for some forgiveness through life.

i think that tha way you hand;ed tha situation was just fine everybody has there sensitive spots and when they get tha least cared about and are not recognized to matter its really hard to not almost blow up at someone so you did tha best thing possile also little kids always see tha world with so much compassion and joy it makes you wonder why people couldnt be more like them but they are young and have not a worry in tha world so its harder to understand older kids then younger but some kids are ungrateful for tha great things in there life so just try to make your older foster daughter relize how much words matter in this world